An electronic service (e-service) may be defined broadly as a service in which transactions are conducted via the global communications network referred to as the Internet. An e-service is designed for access by clients and by other e-services. An e-service may be considered a Web-based service, since it is typically accessible using a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the World Wide Web. An e-service may be a stand-alone, Web-based application created and hosted by the e-business (i.e., service provider) itself, or may be a Web-based application hosted for the e-business by a Web hosting enterprise, which may also be referred to as an “aggregator.”
Whether the e-service is hosted by its e-business or by an aggregator, there is a need for specifying Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and for measuring compliance. For a stand-alone e-service, the SLA would be an agreement between the clients and the e-business. On the other hand, SLAs for aggregators are twofold, since there are agreements between the service provider and its clients and agreements between the service providers and the hosting aggregator. Compliance is a measure of the Quality of Service (QoS) provided to the clients and the QoS provided to the e-business. While the prior art approaches to managing QoS provide relevant information regarding these metrics, the measuring and control can be more focused.